Seventh District, Building with No Windows.
After returning to Academy City, Fang Li did not head home with Sylvia and Index. Instead, he had Sylvia take Index back first while he came here alone.
Perhaps the Guide had anticipated Fang Li's arrival long ago. Before Fang Li arrived, the Guide had already been waiting here, led him into the building, then hurriedly left.
Thus, Fang Li once again entered this vast room, sealed off like a cage.
Here, within the life-support device at the center, filled with medicinal fluid, a creature whose gender could not be discerned—indeed, whose humanity could not even be confirmed—still floated within it as it had for years.
"How was it?"
The voice of the chairman named Aureolus slowly spread from all around.
"Did you enjoy the fight?"
Clearly, Fang Li's battle with Kanzaki could not possibly be concealed from this monster that had practically become a spirit.
Fang Li merely raised his head, looked at Aureolus floating in the life-support device, and spoke.
"Didn't you already know the outcome?"
In response to Fang Li's words, Aureolus replied in an utterly calm voice.
"At most, it was a result derived after calculating every factor. As for the specifics, even I could not know."
After all, the fifty million Sky-Floating Wires Aureolus had deployed existed only within Academy City.
The place where Fang Li and Kanzaki had fought was in the outskirts beyond Academy City.
There were no Sky-Floating Wires there.
Of course, the artificial satellites Academy City had launched into outer space might have been able to monitor the area, but the footage could not have reached Aureolus so quickly.
For that reason, Aureolus had merely calculated the outcome rather than directly obtaining it.
"Although your opponent was a Saint from the Magic Side, and even